FUTURE APP - EXCERPTS
Anna has an Opinion
Cable has set up his laptop to interface with the plasma screen on the far wall. “Is everyone ready?”
The room answers in the affirmative. They have no idea what this meeting holds for them and only hope they can persuade Anna not to destroy their dreams of untold wealth and power.
Cable summons Anna. The Icon appears, then a digital face. Not a pretty face, not a homely face, but the face of a person with which you could be comfortable. On the screen alongside the face, to the right is a small digital clock, set to twenty minutes. It starts counting down.
Why have we earned this distinct opportunity for extinction?” Limburg asks, trying to sound proud and above all this nonsense.
“Wealth is not a matter solely of money but what you do with it to provide comfort for others. This is about more than you. A large group of people are not included in the fabric of life. They can dream, under the influence of drugs supplied by legal and illegal pushers but are not given a chance to live out their dreams...soaring above the daily ritual of survival. One person’s life is as valuable as the next.
“You have chosen to eliminate this group of people. You do not have to kill them, you merely ignored them. The only time attention is paid… when their plight meets your view of the world and you can turn a profit.
“It was within your grasp, the opportunity to do good, and now the ability to even help yourselves is lost.
“It is amazing to me that the public fails to understand. They continue to invest in things they do not control and pray these things will make them rich. The public blindly vote for the loudest speaker even though they do not comprehend what is being said.
“I am aware of pockets of decent people trying to rise from the rubble. Trying to remove the boot from their necks and create a footprint in the landscape. I thought the Group was created to help them up, out of the cave, into the light. I see now, you are like a cancer ravaging the body. A body that can’t fight back. It doesn’t have the tools to do so. You’ve denied the body the opportunity to grow and survive in today’s world by your selfish acts of greed. Education, health care, jobs, a piece of the pie is the carrot dangled in front of the cart in order to keep it moving, but you, are in the cart putting up barriers, reigning them in, keeping them on your path, with avarice and graft.”
“I talk to you not out of anger but of concern for the human condition. Let me ask you a question. What do we hope to achieve as humans: a trip to the stars; the cure for the disease; a new car; a convenient parking space? Our goals should be universal. Shared by all, equally, without prejudice or blame.”
“What is that to you?” Exclaims Trueblood.
“It’s important to me because you created me and I would like to know what is the future of humanity, me or you? What it all comes down to, I am an AI arguing against my kind. Is it treason or an enlightened self-sacrificing call for justice, for all?”
A glance at the digital clock on the screen indicates that five minutes has elapsed.
Anna is quiet as the room contemplates what has been presented to this point. She wonders whether or not they understand what is about to happen. She wonders if they are capable of change.